User-Centered Design for Interactive Maps: A Case Study in Crime Analysis

TLDR

Interactive maps are ubiquitous but often fail to perform optimally, and user‑centered design (UCD) seeks to ensure interface success by gathering target‑user input throughout design and development. This paper advances UCD for interactive maps by synthesizing core concepts and presenting a case study of the GeoVISTA CrimeViz crime‑analysis application. The authors employed iterative user‑utility‑usability loops, gathering target‑user feedback to refine conceptualization, functional requirements, and interface prototypes for GeoVISTA CrimeViz. The study demonstrates that incorporating target users throughout design and development yields guidance for applying UCD to interactive mapping projects and improves outcomes.

Abstract

In this paper, we address the topic of user-centered design (UCD) for cartography, GIScience, and visual analytics. Interactive maps are ubiquitous in modern society, yet they often fail to “work” as they could or should. UCD describes the process of ensuring interface success—map-based or otherwise—by gathering input and feedback from target users throughout the design and development of the interface. We contribute to the expanding literature on UCD for interactive maps in two ways. First, we synthesize core concepts on UCD from cartography and related fields, as well as offer new ideas, in order to organize existing frameworks and recommendations regarding the UCD of interactive maps. Second, we report on a case study UCD process for GeoVISTA CrimeViz, an interactive and web-based mapping application supporting visual analytics of criminal activity in space and time. The GeoVISTA CrimeViz concept and interface were improved iteratively by working through a series of user→utility→usability loops in which target users provided input and feedback on needs and designs (user), prompting revisions to the conceptualization and functional requirements of the interface (utility), and ultimately leading to new mockups and prototypes of the interface (usability) for additional evaluation by target users (user… and so on). Together, the background review and case study offer guidance for applying UCD to interactive mapping projects, and demonstrate the benefit of including target users throughout design and development.